sekaiichi.

Congrats go to Japan on beating Cuba to win the first "world baseball classic". After a loss to Korea, and another one to America, Japan was hardly the favorite, but they got the gold.

During the game, the stands were filled with posterboard bearing the phrase sekaiichi (世界一). It means world's #1, but I think there's a sense among the fans that the sekkaiichi status doesn't stop at baseball. Lots of people feel that way about their own country, to be sure. I'm not sure many countries have such a good claim on it though.

Japan, of course, comes in 2nd place and third place and fourth place all over the map. There aren't many #1's for Japan to brag about (not even sumo), but Japan can brag about it's lack of "last place"s. Unlike, say, America, it has done a much better job of balancing it's success with a nod to the life of its citizens.

Japan isn't violent, filled with drugs, repressed, addicted, fat, et cetera. It's not a country of anger and vandalism. They aren't rioting over this law and that. There's no long history of systematic violence to immigrants. Human rights are still in quite good repair (even if equality of the sexes could use a shove).

But today Japan is the world's best at baseball. and video games. and animation. and and maybe even at food. It's a country that knows how to relax, knows how to fuck, knows how to share corporate earnings with employees, knows how to stay above the fray of global conflict.

Even if you rebut every single one of the gold stars I give Japan, there's something cumulatively good and functional about this country. Cumulatively better than any other country I've been to.

(edit: I have no idea who it was since I wasn't looking at the screen when it came up, but I heard on the news an american voice saying "this just shows you that baseball is the same all over the world. we just have better players." Isn't that second sentence open to debate now?)